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42 - New

 New Years’ Eve. We were at Layla’s house, getting ready. I had spent the day watching the Food Food channel with Mrs. D’Souza and listening to her complain about how the professional chef on TV didn’t know how to make a good brioche. Layla and Sam were up in Layla’s room. At five Mrs. D’Souza got up and announced that she had to get ready and check on the marinates so I reluctantly climbed the narrow wooden stairs up to Layla’s room. From inside I could hear squeals and soft music. Before opening the door I braced myself.

 Upon entering I saw Sam on the floor, executing a painful-looking push-up with Layla lying on his back. His arms were fully extended and she was giggling her head off. Arctic Monkeys, a favourite of both of theirs, was playing on her stereo.

 “Very cliché,” I approved, shutting the door behind myself as I entered.

 “It’s fun!” Layla tinkled as Sam dropped down to the ground again.

 “I bet that he caves in the next one,” I said, going over to her bed and sitting down on it.

 “Maya,” Sam growled, pushing himself up again.

 “Hm?”

 He held himself in position and then his arms gave out – they were both a messy tangle of limbs on the floor then. I rolled my eyes.

 “Ow,” Sam groaned.

 “Told you,” I said. “How bored were you guys anyway?”

 “Eleven on a scale of one to ten,” Layla informed me, rolling onto her stomach and kissing Sam on the cheek before getting up. “How about we get ready now?”

 “Now? It’s five o’clock.”

 “The party’s at seven,” she reminded me. “C’mon, you can go for a bath first. Quick, quick.”

 Sam was still facedown on the floor as I got up and locked myself in Layla’s bathroom for a shower. For a few minutes I stood staring at her paraphernalia of creams and jars of multani mitti and besan and neem paste, and her mint toothpaste and her Listerine kept on the marble counter. Then I stripped down, pulled aside the fish-patterned shower curtain and got into her shower to prepare myself for a good night. I finished quickly, using her coconut scrub and her pumice stone. She went in after me. I stepped out into her warm room in my towel; Sam was lounging on the bed, hair damp and dressed in jeans and a fresh t-shirt. He was flicking through her copy of To Kill A Mockingbird. I started rifling through Layla’s closet to find our dresses – we’d put them there when we bought them.

 “Hey. Soapmouth.”

 Sam’s voice sounded over the sound of water hitting the tiles inside the bathroom. I turned around.

 “Yeah?”

 The book lay on his chest – he was looking at me seriously.

 “Promise me you’ll have fun tonight?”

 I stared at him. He was asking it of me like he had never asked anything before.

 “I promise,” I told him, attempting to smile, and I think it worked because he smiled back.

 “Good.”

 “Good.”

*

 The D’Souzas lived on a gem of a property – outwardly the façade of the building was small and cramped but once you passed through the main house, there was a huge backyard space, perfect for parties and such. It was an old house, passed down through the generations. It had rickety wooden steps, wooden window shutters, some of them replaced with panes of toughened glass when they renovated in 2006, and glossy wooden floors perfect for dancing. Mrs. D’Souza had picked out colours for one wall in every room – the dining room, which opened straight into the backyard, was painted a deep, understated scarlet, the living room a brilliant turquoise, the TV den a pinkish-beige, Layla’s room a sober purple, the guest room a neutral shade of beige, the main bedroom a jade green. She was also fastidious about pictures and framing – Layla’s childhood was mapped out chronologically on the wall of the corridor connecting the living room and the dining room, in pretty black frames and Warhol tints. Some of her paintings were also put up in the rooms. All of these were dusted, straightened, the carpets vacuumed, the Tunisian wall hangings adjusted, the Turkish ottomans strategically arranged, the track lights above the photographs hanging on the walls switched on. Mr. D’Souza came home from work, kissed his wife hello, greeted me in his deep, booming voice and hugged me tight. He then helped around, setting up the barbeque, putting some Miles Davis on, and at six-fifty, we were more or less ready.